PREVIOUS COVERAGE
Read our July 21 story on the Contreras case here.
A federal immigration agency first accused a Lackawanna County restaurant owner of being in the country illegally six years ago, according to a spokesman for a related immigration agency.
Nasario Damian Contreras, 45, who lives in Scranton but is a native of Mexico, remained in the United States and opened three restaurants as the case wound its way through the nation’s immigration system.
On Feb. 21, 2023, an immigration judge in Philadelphia ordered Contreras deported, according to a spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
It's unclear how he remained in the U.S. since, but ICE agents detained Contreras on July 15 as he came out of Isabella’s Eatery in Jefferson Twp., one of three restaurants he co-owns in the county’s North Pocono region.
His arrest sparked support for Contreras on Facebook and elsewhere. Family members said 400 people wrote letters of support for his immigration case.
First deemed illegal in 2019
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services first issued Contreras a notice with the determination that he was in the country illegally on July 23, 2019, the ICE spokesman said in an email. The notice required Contreras to appear before an immigration judge.
He was accused of being in the country illegally under a section of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, the ICE spokesman said. Other sections allow for deportations because of criminal activity, but he was not accused of that.
The DUI arrest
The spokesman said Scranton police arrested Contreras Oct. 13, 2022, for driving under the influence of alcohol or a controlled substance. He said Contreras’ ICE file shows the charge remains pending, but online court records show no pending criminal charges against Contreras in Lackawanna County.
County District Attorney Brian Gallagher said he has no record of Contreras being charged or entering a probationary program that allows first-time DUI offenders to get their records cleared.
Erik Arceno, Contreras’ son, said his father was arrested but never charged because Scranton police did not receive blood test results. The family plans to go to court to expunge the arrest, he said.
Gallagher said Contreras could not be charged now because the two-year statute of limitations for filing a DUI charge has expired.
Efforts to reach Scranton police for comment were not immediately successful.
Work permit lapsed
In an interview Monday with WVIA News, Mayte Vargas, his girlfriend and the restaurants’ other co-owner, said Contreras’ work permit was lapsing, but a lawyer failed to let him know soon enough about a hearing to keep his legal status. A second lawyer did nothing to help straighten out his immigration status, so the family is working with a new lawyer, Vargas said.
“So, we just hired a lawyer on Friday. So, we're working like so hard trying to get everything going and open, reopen his case,” said Vargas, who has a 6-month-old boy with Contreras.
He owns three restaurants
Vargas said she and Contreras also co-own Damian’s Eatery in Clifton Township, and Leonor’s Eatery in Moscow.
They opened Leonor’s in September 2019, a few months after Contreras received the notice to appear in immigration court.
Vargas and Contreras bought the building that houses Leonor’s on Aug. 8, 2022, for $389,000, according to a copy of the deed. That’s six months before he was ordered deported.
Cooking his passion
In an October 2019 Scranton Times-Tribune newspaper story, Contreras said he found his career 20 years ago, when he learned how to cook in New York.
“It’s the only thing I really like. I enjoy doing it,” he told the newspaper.
He arrived in Pennsylvania and spent years cooking at Mendicino’s restaurant in Covington Twp, according to the newspaper’s report.
Vargas told WVIA News she and Contreras worked for about a year at Brick Oven Pizzeria in South Scranton before deciding to open Leonor’s.
